Page:Philosophical Review Volume 21.djvu/640

622 of such an unknown factor does not touch the moral facts which give rise to the notion of freedom. If freedom is to have an intelligible meaning, it must not be taken as referring to a set of facts out of relation to the causal series. It must be conceived as referring to a different aspect of facts which are thoroughly determinate in their relations.

The aim of the present article is to indicate the method and results of Rudolph Goldscheid's work, Hoherentwicklung und Menschenökonomie. Sociologists, wishing to preserve certain human values, have drawn the most diverse conclusions from Darwinian principles, and have erred also in not subjecting Darwinism itself to a sufficiently rigorous criticism. A cardinal error of Darwinism and of neo-Darwinism has been an overemphasis on the environment. The notion that natural selection is an immanent law, which ever leads to the production of higher types, results in an unfounded optimism. In reality, natural selection and adaptation are dependent upon complex and variable conditions of the organism as well as of the environment, and instead of leading to more complex types, may lead to degeneration. Progression, when it takes place, is the result, not merely of selection but of the active adaptation of organisms. Instead of adopting a fatalistic attitude toward the power of natural selection, the sociologist should study the active forces and faculties of man. Darwin's application of the Malthusian law is questioned, since some creatures persist in an unfavorable environment, while others die out in a highly favorable one. The rate of reproduction is held to be, not a constant, but a highly variable means of adaptation. A great over-production of off-spring is a sign of unfavorable conditions and faulty ability to cope with them. The possession of varied resources for dealing with the conditions of life is followed by a loss of reproductive power, hence the human species has nothing to fear from a danger of over-population.

It has been recognized in recent studies of the processes of thought, that the observers' reports contain material of different kinds: introspective description, and information or communication. There is no general agreement as regards (1) the line of division between the two modes of report, (2) the nature of the conscious processes underlying information, or (3) the attitude which finds expression in information. Jacobson required his observers to distinguish between description of process and statement of meaning. He secures a line of division in their reports and he finds that there are no specific meaning processes underlying the statements of meaning. On the basis of new experiments the attempt is made to characterize the attitudes implied in, or demanded by,